(no subject)

[quigonejinn]

The Dark Side of the Force had its own dreams and its own set of prophetic methods, but the true-dreaming techniques were much the same. Much like the dreams that drew on the traditional, Jedi side, Anakin's prophetic dreams as a Sith were about the future. They stayed with him after he was awake; to make a particular point, they would wake him up at night, and the main difference was that the dreams he had now were more pleasant than they had been in the past: the irony was that his dreams as a Sith were more pleasant than the ones he had as a Jedi. Victory. Triumph. Worlds submitting, systems obeying, the Death Star growing and swelling around its construction frame.

Anakin would be able to describe those dreams to Palpatine so clearly that Imperial engineers could calculate when a particular sector would be completed or an engineering problem solved by examining the positions of stars and planets in the background of his dreams.

If Anakin dreamed about killing and murder and regret, he did so only in normal ones that he forgot shortly after waking.



Another thing that Anakin lost after he became Vader was his ability to work with droids. He had, by volume, become majority mechanical. He survived because of one of the sophisticated mobile life-support systems ever assembled; he walked on servo limbs, and his body took oxygen through lungs that were artificially inflated and deflated and, additionally, had the majority of their alevolii replaced by Goridian sac tissue.

Anakin had kept his facility with the Force, increased it dozens, if not hundreds of times, but that was no help with building and maintaining robots. Anakin had also lost much of his fine motor control -- not only had he lost two legs and an arm, but thanks to the fire, he had lost neural function. As a result, much of personal quarters were devoid of any object smaller than a handsbreadth because he had difficulty manipulating them, and he refused to have Imperial technicians to design specialized equipment that would allow him to continue tinkering with droids. It was shameful enough that his fighter had to be customized for him, had to be broadened to accomodate his size and awkward entry, had to have buttons shifted and controls altered.

This sensitivity made Palpatine smile. He made a point of telling Anakin to come see him while he, Palpatine, took his breakfast. He would make Anakin sit in a chair and talk to him about the day's work while Palpatine had a bit of fruit or drank some juice.

Anakin was fed through tubes grafted into his skin. His torso was held in a container of bacta fluid, drained and refreshed every three days; he had not tasted anything but his own spit and blood and the occaisional dose of bacta for years, and Palpatine would always make a point of offering Anakin some of his breakfast. Pour a glass of juice and set it in front of Anakin, smile into his sleeve when the rage came boiling out of Anakin, and it was on a return from one of these breakfasts that Anakin smashed the workshop that he had spent the previous month carefully assembling.

The idea, after all, had been that if it was too shameful to ask the Imperial technicians to design specialized equipment so that he could continue tinkering with droids, then he would develop it himself. He had lifted delicate pieces into place with the Force; he had gotten far enough that there were the parts of a maintenance droid laid out, head, shoulders, body, on the central working space for his first project. In fact, everything in the room was scaled so that Anakin would feel comfortable, but when he returned to the workshop after that one breakfast, he smashed every piece of equipment in there and used the Force to crush the parts of the maintenance droid into sheets of metal.

Vader never tried to learn his old hobbies again. He had seen the metaphor in the disassembled body waiting to be put together; he had learned the lesson that his master had been teaching him, and as a result, Sidious no longer required his apprentice to attend to him at what had been Anakin's favorite meal of the day.

Comments

[citizenjess.livejournal.com]

Anakin was fed through tubes grafted into his skin. His torso was held in a container of bacta fluid, drained and refreshed every three days; he had not tasted anything but his own spit and blood and the occaisional dose of bacta for years, and Palpatine would always make a point of Anakin some of his breakfast. Pour a glass of juice and set it in front of Anakin, smile into his sleeve when the rage came boiling out of Anakin, and it was on a return from one of these breakfasts that Anakin smashed the workshop that he had spent the previous month carefully assembling.

OMG that is so brilliant. It makes so much sense and yet, I don't think anyone has ever explained it that way. :X :X :X

[neotoma.livejournal.com]

okay, the idea that Anakin's dreams are less disturbing as a Sith is totally beliebvable and quite sad.

For the second one, Palpatine would do EXACTLY that, the mind-fucker. Anakin would probably sort himself out -- it might take years, but he's stubborn -- if Palpatine was just out of the picture for long enough.

[mozart.livejournal.com]

god, this was heartbreaking.

[pronker]

Anakin's pride didn't get burned away at Mustafar, it intensified and Sidious made it even worse --- could their relationship be any sicker? Or make the reader want to learn more about it so the throwing-the-Emperor-down-the-shaft scene gets even a bigger cheer? The last paragraph is great.

[polgarawolf.livejournal.com]

God, this makes me want to beat Sidious to death with a bag full of oranges. S-l-o-w-l-y.